Madar (Nouakchott) - Mohamed Jemil Ould Mansour, president of the Front for Citizenship and Justice (FCJ, known as Jemaa), said the parties of Mauritania's ruling majority were not consulted on the choice of their representatives on the inclusive national dialogue committee, and that he learned the names from the majority's WhatsApp group, speaking on the "Hiwar Sahara 24" programme on the Sahara 24 channel.
He said the majority held two meetings without agreeing on names, after which its coordinator, El Insaf party president Mohamed Ould Bilal Messoud, decided to continue talks at later meetings that never took place. As the October 15 deadline approached, he said he tried to call the El Insaf president without reply, then approached vice-president Mohamed Yahya Ould Horma, who told him the president's schedule was "busy" and that he could leave him a WhatsApp message.
His party met on Tuesday and Thursday to agree a common position before receiving, on the morning of Friday, October 16, a message from the El Insaf president announcing the names. The FCJ rejected them, suspended its membership of the majority and left its WhatsApp group. Ould Mansour denied that the selection was based on parties' parliamentary representation and their numbers of mayors and councillors, saying that criterion had not been raised and penalises parties founded after the elections. He proposed criteria based on political presence, mobilisation, regional branches and "strength in debate".
In the second part of the interview, he said majority parties did not discuss issues in depth and that some figures had advised him not to debate the matters put before them, because the majority's role, as they put it, was "to chase what the president is thinking". "It is true that I moved from the opposition to the majority, but that does not change my political upbringing," he said.
He criticised the acceptance of "pre-packaged" decisions without debate, saying: "Some elites persist in packaging ideas without being asked to, and the best example is the call for a third term that the president has not asked for."
The FCJ announced on Friday that it was freezing its membership of the majority coalition in protest at the choice of its representatives on the dialogue supervisory committee, while the majority said the selection reflected the parties' electoral representation.
